Linguistic Mediation in EOI Information (C1)

LINGUISTIC MEDIATION IN C1

DEFINITION 

In its broadest sense ‘to mediate’ means to act as an intermediary in a conflict between parties in order to help bring about agreement.

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In the field of language use ‘mediation’ has come to have a related and equally important meaning, namely to assist people to communicate effectively with one another when they speak different languages, do not understand certain terms or concepts, or when they are dealing with situations or ideas that are new to them.

It is summarised in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages 1 as follows: “… the written and/or oral activities of mediation make communication possible between persons who are unable, for whatever reason, to communicate with each other directly. Translation or interpretation, a paraphrase, summary or record, provides for a third party a (re)formulation of a [spoken or written] source text to which this third party does not have direct access. Mediating language activities – (re)processing an existing text – occupy an important place in the normal linguistic functioning of our societies” (p.4).

TYPES 

Both output and input texts can be either spoken or written.

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They can be in L1 (your mother tongue) or L2 (the language you’re studying).

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Thus, we may have:

Written text in L1 → Written text in L2

Spoken text in L1 → Spoken text in L2

Written text in L2 → Written text in L1

Spoken text in L2 → Spoken text in L1

Written text in L1 → Spoken text in L2

Spoken text in L1 → Written text in L2

Written text in L2 → Spoken text in L1

Spoken text in L2 → Written text in L1

EXAMPLES 

You work for the University. Your boss has asked you to read different graphs on the number of foreign students in campus in the past 5 years, the activities that are offered for them and their academic results and write a report about it.

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An Indian friend of yours has been given a handout on New Year’s Eve in Spain but their level of Spanish is not Good enough, so he’s asked for help. Read the information and answer back telling him about the main ideas in the text, and cultural implications that might be missing.

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WRITE YOUR TEXT IN 200-220 WORDS

EXAMPLES 

A friend of yours living in an European country would like to move to Spain. Since they have a degree in English, they are thinking about taking a master’s degree in teaching so as to be able to work as a qualified teacher. They’ve asked you to provide them with information about requirements, documents they might need, and then call them via Skype to let them know what they should do.

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You’ve read an article about global warming and your teacher has asked you to provide a brief summary of it.

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A friend of yours is coming to your town. Read the information on accomodation and activities to do. Write an email to talk about the possibilities and what you think he/she might enjoy most.

How to tackle it

You don’t need to… 

Provide a specialised equivalence between two texts.

You are not a profesional translator.

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Provide with an accurate or word-to-word translation of the text. Again, you’re not expected to be a translator.

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Translate the whole text. You only need to cover the bits that you need to transfer for the other part to understand.

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Stick to the genre or register of the original document

Steps to take 

Planning = Developing background knowledge, preparing a glossary, considering interlocutors’ needs, selecting units of interpretation.

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Execution = Previewing, processing input and reformulating the original for the other person to understand.

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Evaluation = Checking congruence of two versions, checking consistency of usage

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Repair = Refining by consulting dictionaries, thesaurus, consulting experts, resources (unfortunately, this part is left out in exams)

EVALUATION CRITERIA Two main areas will be evaluated. The well-known range and accuracy, and the new-comer: transmission and interpretation of information

RANGE AND ACCURACY

INTERPRETATION AND TRANSMISSION OF INFO

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Does the student use an extense range of vocabulary?

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Does the student interpret the essential information and key arguments?

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Is it accurate and expresses shades of meaning?

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Has the student conveyed the intention of the writer?

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Is the discourse adapted to the reader, fulfilling the necessary functions?

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Does the student take into account the cultural context of both input and output audiences?

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Does the student take into account ambiguities and different points of view?

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Does the student provide a clearly and effective summary of the text, using a language that adapts to the audience?

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Does the student make use of comparisons, opositions and so on to clarify?

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Does the student take into account socio-cultural factors when doing so?

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Does the student use an extense range of structures which allows them to express themselves with no restrictions?

Are ideas connected through the use of a wide range of discourse markers used effectively?

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Are mistakes simply sporadic?

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Does punctuation and paragraph distribution contribute to make the text coherent and readable?